Concert Reviews

Concert Review and Photos: TREMONTI in Bristol, UK

O2 Academy | Bristol, UK | 2 December 2018

When it comes to travelling to concerts, Bristol is certainly not one of my favourite places to travel to but can be pretty convenient to get to, especially when you are seeing a few shows in a row in the UK. But Tremonti making a tour stop at the O2 Academy was certainly more than enough to convince me to make the trip to Bristol.

Openers of the night were French guys Disconnected. Most probably have not heard about the band yet, it was at the beginning of this year when they released their debut album White Colossus. But I am sure that we will hear more about this band in the upcoming years. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve been so impressed by an opening band as with Disconnected. These five guys from France are very talented, charismatic, friendly and combined with all the hard work they put in their music, this is only the beginning. And an amazing beginning to say the least, despite being the first band with the shortest setlist, that only left the people hungry for more, they certainly showed their best. Their set was high with powerful energy, amazing interaction with the crowd, who most certainly enjoyed the band especially when Ivan Pavlakovic, the singer, came down to the rail to get closer to the fans and a high amount of guitar and vocal skills.

Second came The Raven Age. This band is more known than Disconnected, they’ve been playing for longer and since they are from the UK, they already have a certain fanbase here. Despite all that, I have to say that compared to the first set, their show just lacked. The energy went visibly down, the singer made almost no effort to interact with the crowd, the show just passed without any memorable moment and quite honestly, I would prefer for them to go first and for Disconnected to have a longer set.

After that it could only get better. Everybody was waiting for the four guys from the US, after all and what a show they delivered. It was nice to see the band performed in a packed club like O2 Academy. Because while in the rest of Europe the clubs were not too crowded and Tremonti have played before usually around 300-400 people, here in the UK it was more than double than that, the packed clubs welcoming about 900-1000 people to enjoy the show.

Tremonti are currently on road to support their fourth album – A Dying Machine, which is according to many fans and critics their best work to date and even the previous albums were undoubtedly high-quality pieces of music. Mark Tremonti along with his bandmates Eric Friedman, Tanner Keegan and Ryan Bennett (who is filling in for Garrett Whitlock on drums) played approximately hour and half long set going through the whole catalogue of the band, even though the focus was on the latest record with songs like ‘Take You With Me‘, the first single of the album , ‘Traipse‘, ‘The First The Last‘ – my personal favourite that had premiere the night before at the show in Manchester or a bit more heavy an energetic songs like ‘Throw Them To The Lions‘ or ‘Bringer Of War’. Songs like ‘You Waste Your Time‘, ‘Flying Monkeys’, ‘Radical Change‘, ‘The Things I’ve Seen‘ or ‘Dust‘ took us through all the albums. The band even added ‘Unable To See‘ from their previous album on this tour to their setlist, which has never been played live before this European run.

Needless to say – even with 19 songs the show was over too soon, but the guys stayed behind to sign the merch people bought at the show as they always do. It’s really amazing to see people appreciate this kind of music in the UK so much and it is also amazing to see the band appreciate the fans as Tremonti certainly do. In my opinion, this band is one of the most underrated and while I would love to see them play big crowds as they did in summer when they joined the legendary Iron Maiden as support on their tour, part of me is selfishly glad for these kinda small but very intense club shows. So I will certainly keep coming back. Word has it these guys will be returning to Europe next summer and I will be there for sure. And I can only recommend for you to go see them play live as well, you will not be disappointed.

All photos by NIWY KOVÁČOVÁ

Disconnected

The Raven Age

Tremonti

All photos by NIWY KOVÁČOVÁ

 

DreamHost

Niwy Kováčová

Slovakia - Photographer/Writer

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